IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/9612.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Hog Round Marketing, Seed Quality, and Government Policy: Institutional Change in U.S. Cotton Production, 1920-1960

Author

Listed:
  • Alan L. Olmstead
  • Paul W. Rhode

Abstract

Between 1928 and 1960 U.S. cotton production witnessed a revolution with average yields roughly tripling while the quality of the crop increased significantly. This paper analyzes the key institutional and scientific developments that facilitated the revolution in biological technologies, pointing to the importance of two government programs -- the one-variety community movement and the Smith-Doxey Act -- as catalysts for change. The story displays two phenomena of interest in light of the recent literature: 1. an important real-world example of the workings of Akerlof's lemons model and 2. a case where inventors, during an early phase of the product cycle, actually encouraged consumers to copy and disseminate their intellectual property.

Suggested Citation

  • Alan L. Olmstead & Paul W. Rhode, 2003. "Hog Round Marketing, Seed Quality, and Government Policy: Institutional Change in U.S. Cotton Production, 1920-1960," NBER Working Papers 9612, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:9612
    Note: DAE
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w9612.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Musoke, Moses S. & Olmstead, Alan L., 1982. "The Rise of the Cotton Industry in California: A Comparative Perspective," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 42(2), pages 385-412, June.
    2. Whatley, Warren C., 1983. "Labor for the Picking: the New Deal in the South," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 43(4), pages 905-929, December.
    3. George A. Akerlof, 1970. "The Market for "Lemons": Quality Uncertainty and the Market Mechanism," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 84(3), pages 488-500.
    4. Constantine, John H & Alston, Julian M & Smith, Vincent H, 1994. "Economic Impacts of the California One-Variety Cotton Law," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 102(5), pages 951-974, October.
    5. Simpson, D.M., 1954. "Natural Cross-Pollination in Cotton," Technical Bulletins 156667, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    6. Bulow, Jeremy I, 1982. "Durable-Goods Monopolists," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 90(2), pages 314-332, April.
    7. Simpson, D.M., 1954. "Natural Cross-Pollination in Cotton," Technical Bulletins 156738, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    8. Howell, L. D. & Watson, Leonard J., 1939. "Cotton Prices in Relation to Cotton Classification Service and to Quality Improvement," Technical Bulletins 168475, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Virts, Nancy, 2006. "Change in the plantation system: American South, 1910-1945," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 43(1), pages 153-176, January.
    2. Brunt, Liam & Cannon, Edmund, 2015. "Variations in the price and quality of English grain, 1750–1914: Quantitative evidence and empirical implications," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 74-92.
    3. Isengildina-Massa, Olga & MacDonald, Stephen, 2009. "U.S. Cotton Prices and the World Cotton Market: Forecasting and Structural Change," 2009 Annual Meeting, July 26-28, 2009, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 49324, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    4. McQuade, Timothy & Salant, Stephen W. & Winfree, Jason, 2009. "Markets with untraceable goods of unknown quality: a market failure exacerbated by globalization," MPRA Paper 21874, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. MacDonald, Stephen & Naik, Gopal & Landes, Rip, 2010. "Markets, Institutions, and the Quality of Agricultural Products: Cotton Quality in India," 2010 Annual Meeting, July 25-27, 2010, Denver, Colorado 61854, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Galiani, Sebastian & Jaitman, Laura & Weinschelbaum, Federico, 2020. "Crime and durable goods," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 173(C), pages 146-163.
    2. Adriano A. Rampini, 2019. "Financing Durable Assets," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(2), pages 664-701, February.
    3. Kumar, Praveen, 2002. "Price and quality discrimination in durable goods monopoly with resale trading," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 20(9), pages 1313-1339, November.
    4. Raghunath Singh Rao & Om Narasimhan & George John, 2009. "Understanding the Role of Trade-Ins in Durable Goods Markets: Theory and Evidence," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 28(5), pages 950-967, 09-10.
    5. Michael Waldman, 2003. "Durable Goods Theory for Real World Markets," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 17(1), pages 131-154, Winter.
    6. Eric Brouillat, 2015. "Live fast, die young? Investigating product life spans and obsolescence in an agent-based model," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 25(2), pages 447-473, April.
    7. Eric Brouillat, 2011. "Durability of consumption goods and market competition: an agent-based modelling," Post-Print hal-00780254, HAL.
    8. Belleflamme,Paul & Peitz,Martin, 2015. "Industrial Organization," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107687899.
    9. Judith Chevalier & Austan Goolsbee, 2009. "Are Durable Goods Consumers Forward-Looking? Evidence from College Textbooks," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 124(4), pages 1853-1884.
    10. Chen, Jiawei & Esteban, Susanna & Shum, Matthew, 2008. "Demand and supply estimation biases due to omission of durability," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 147(2), pages 247-257, December.
    11. Helmut Dietl & Egon Franck, 2000. "Free-TV, Abo-TV, Pay per View-TV — Organisationsformen zur Vermarktung von Unterhaltung," Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research, Springer, vol. 52(6), pages 592-603, September.
    12. Robert H. Porter & Peter Sattler, 1999. "Patterns of Trade in the Market for Used Durables: Theory and Evidence," NBER Working Papers 7149, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Michael Waldman, 2004. "Antitrust Perspectives for Durable-Goods Markets," CESifo Working Paper Series 1306, CESifo.
    14. Igal Hendel & Alessandro Lizzeri & Marciano Siniscalchi, 2005. "Efficient Sorting in a Dynamic Adverse-Selection Model," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 72(2), pages 467-497.
    15. Justin P. Johnson & Henry S. Schneider & Michael Waldman, 2014. "The Role and Growth of New-Car Leasing: Theory and Evidence," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 57(3), pages 665-698.
    16. Justin P. Johnson & Michael Waldman, 2010. "Leasing, Lemons, and Moral Hazard," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 53(2), pages 307-328, May.
    17. Andrikopoulos, Athanasios & Markellos, Raphael N., 2015. "Dynamic interaction between markets for leasing and selling automobiles," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 260-270.
    18. Susanna Esteban & Matthew Shum, 2007. "Durable-goods oligopoly with secondary markets: the case of automobiles," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 38(2), pages 332-354, June.
    19. Assaf Razin & Efraim Sadka & Chi-Wa Yuen, 1999. "An Information-Based Model of Foreign Direct Investment: The Gains from Trade Revisited," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 6(4), pages 579-596, November.
    20. Konduru, Srinivasa & Kalaitzandonakes, Nicholas G. & Magnier, Alexandre, 2009. "GMO Testing Strategies and Implications for Trade: A Game Theoretic Approach," 2009 Annual Meeting, July 26-28, 2009, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 49594, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • N6 - Economic History - - Manufacturing and Construction
    • N4 - Economic History - - Government, War, Law, International Relations, and Regulation

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:9612. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.